Get a Life, Chloe Brown

“Her voice was sharp and expensive, like someone had taught a diamond how to speak. The sound scrambled his mind, her crisp accent reminding him of people and places he would rather forget. Of a different time and a different woman, one who’d clutched her silver spoon in one manicured hand and squeezed his heart tight in the other.”

Red hears Chloe speak and remembers his failed relationship with Pippa, in which she abused him and left him with heavy emotional baggage. This quote sets up Red’s class anxieties, and how Red projects these anxieties onto Chloe when they first meet because he associates her wealth with the way Pippa, also wealthy, treated him.

“Chloe didn’t do well around people like him; confident people, beautiful people, those who smiled easily and were liked by everyone and felt comfortable in their own sin. They reminded her of all the things she wasn’t and all the loved ones who’d left her behind.”

As much as Chloe’s personality triggers insecurity in Red, his perceived confidence and ease in moving through the world triggers Chloe’s own anxieties. At the beginning of the text, she views Red as someone who is effortlessly comfortable in his own skin. Chloe rarely feels comfortable in her own skin both because people she thought cared about her have left her, and because of her fibromyalgia and chronic pain. Chloe feels resentment towards Red because of this and projects her own insecurities onto him, which contributes to the wedge between them that they spend much of the text breaking down as their relationship develops.

“Being rescued from trees was all well and good, but she didn’t need a rescue from herself.”

Sensing that Chloe is hurting from the exertion of saving Smudge from the tree, Red offers to see her back to her apartment and make sure she is okay. Still convinced she does not like Red, Chloe refuses his offer and limps back to her own apartment to show him that she is capable and not in need of rescue. Chloe often tries to cope with her chronic pain by overcompensating, which often leads to further injury and pain.

“She’d learned the hard way that people were always looking for a reason to leave, that affection or adoration or promises of devotion turned to dust when things got tough [...] And then Chloe would be forced to remember all the things she’d lost, and to wonder, for the thousandth time, what it was about her that made her so easy to leave.”

Chloe tries to shield herself from her growing feelings for Red because of her past traumatic relationships in which people exited her life because of her chronic illness. Rather than understand that these people left her life because of their own faults, Chloe internalized their abandonment as a sign that something is wrong with her. As a result, Chloe put up walls to protect herself from further abandonment, which, while safer, prevents her from becoming close to others worthy of her trust, like Red.

“But help and concern, even from the people she loved–even when she needed it–had a way of grating. Of building up, or rather, grinding down. Truthfully, guiltily, sometimes simple gratitude tasted like barely sweetened resentment in her mouth. So she didn’t express it at all.”

Chloe expresses how difficult it is for her to accept help from others, even those she loves and trusts, because of her chronic health issues. As a result, she struggles to express her gratitude for those in her life that are loyal to her, because to thank them would want to acknowledge that she is a burden on their lives, even though she rationally understands they would never feel that way about her.

“Why should he create a more palatable version of reality? Why should he paint for anyone but himself?”

After his abusive relationship with Pippa ends, Red struggles with imposter syndrome and his confidence. This compounds the fact that his art style radically changes after he leaves London. At first, this change in his style worries him and makes him think that his career will never take off again, but the further he gets away from the relationship and begins to process his feelings, the more he realizes that his art should be something he creates for himself. Even if his style has changed and he never goes back to creating the art he made previously, Red begins to realize that he will still be enough.

“Whether something bad is coming from your body or your brain, it makes no difference. Still feels like shit, right? Still hurts. Still needs fixing. They shouldn’t have dismissed you, even if it was in your head. When it comes down to it, everything we feel is in our heads.”

When Chloe explains that many people in her life outside of her family deserted her after her fibromyalgia diagnosis, Red argues that people should not have treated her poorly no matter what the circumstances were. Chloe convinces herself that she is “easy to leave,” and that people in her life were justified to leave her because of her chronic illness. Red challenges this idea and goes even further in saying that even if Chloe’s illness turned out to be something in her head, that it still was not worth deserting her over. Red argues that everything humans feel is a product of their minds, and that no one deserves to make another person feel less than.

“The thing is, Red…some of us have some many marginalizations, we might drown if we let all the little hurts flood in. So there are those, like me, who filter. I think you’ve noticed that I filter a lot. It’s not some inbuilt shield made of money. It’s just something I’m forced to do.”

Chloe explains, in part, what it is like for her to move through the world as a Black woman with disabilities. Chloe acknowledges her awareness that white, able-bodied people run the world, and that many aspects of her identity place her at the margins of society despite her financial privilege. This knowledge causes Chloe to filter herself to some degree to make it easier for her to move through the world. She says that she does this as a coping mechanism, otherwise the weight of societal oppression would be incapacitating.

“Always, she was better safe than sorry. And better left alone than left behind.”

This is a well-worn phrase that Chloe tells herself to validate pushing people away and preventing others from getting close to her. She rationalizes her rejection of Red by thinking she is better off by herself than allowing Red to become close to her. This mindset is a major hurdle that Chloe must overcome in the text, and it is through her relationship with Red that she understands that someone finds her worth fighting for, and that being safe might prevent heartache, but to give up on love because it is difficult is a risk, she is not willing to take.

“He chuckled, shook his head, and she’d missed him so much her heart cracked open like an egg. Sticky emotion spilled out. The remnants of her protective shell were scattered around in tiny shards.”

Chloe upsets Red by panicking when introducing him to her aunt during their night out, referring to him as “no one.” When Red comes to her apartment a few days later and they make up, Chloe must be vulnerable to show Red that she is truly sorry, and that her feelings for him are real. The metaphor of Chloe as an egg shows that with Red, she not only breaks down the shell she puts up around herself to protect her feelings, but that Red is a safe person to do this with. The emotions that she feels for Red are still “sticky” and complicated, but they are worth showing and sharing because being with Red requires her to be vulnerable.

“The promise of more with him glittered like broken glass, beautiful but potentially deadly. Good things usually hurt in the end.”

Chloe still views her relationship with Red with some trepidation, as shown by comparing the potential being with Red to broken glass. Chloe still is not ready to commit to taking that risk, knowing that while the potential is beautiful it holds dangerous potential that could wind up with her seriously hurt.

“Being around him was so incredibly easy, she forgot how strange their relationship was sometimes. How he didn’t know basic things about her like her sister’s full name, but he knew she loved Smudge and didn’t trust and wanted to be brave.” 

Chloe realizes that the depth of a relationship is not contingent on knowing every fact about a person, but rather knowing the parts of a person that are deeper than surface-level. Chloe and Red begin their relationship in an unconventional way but become close so quickly precisely because they are willing to expose the important parts of who they are, such as Chloe’s desire to be brave and her love for Smudge.

“You think this is a big deal because, no offense, you’ve had a lot of people in your life who claimed to care about you but didn’t act like it [...] So I'm doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps. Don’t think about it too hard.”

Red tells Chloe that her needs are not a burden and that she can accept help and support from others—she does not always have to be strong. Red acknowledges that everyone has gaps, not just Chloe, and that people who deserve to be in her life will want to fill those gaps rather than run away from them. The most important part of this quote is that Red does not act as if this is a huge task, or something monumental. He says “that’s how people should behave”: It is a fact of life rather than a huge sacrifice.

“Finally he realized: Starting my day with Chloe feels like starting my day in front of a canvas.”

After spending the night together for the first time, Red and Chloe enjoy a leisurely morning making breakfast together. The ease of their time spent together reminds Red of the ease he feels in front of his canvas, a place he feels he can truly be himself in his truest form. He realizes that being with Chloe makes him feel the same way, and that starting the day with Chloe, much like starting the day in front of an empty canvas, feels wide open with endless possibilities.

“When she and Red had left that awful nightclub, a seed of possibility had started growing in Chloe, daring and electric: maybe the list should be more than a box-ticking exercise. Maybe it should mean more. Maybe changing it wasn’t the end of the world.”

While at the nightclub, Chloe realizes that the experience was only fun in her past because of the friends she shared the experience with. Red makes her see that her list can be about more than going through the motions, and this new flexibility opens Chloe up to being willing to experience things that truly make her happy, such as falling in love with Red.

“He trailed off, but she thought she knew what he was going to say. She knew, because she knew him—not just the achingly cool, charming, handsome man who was quick to joke and quicker to help, but the not-so-shiny parts beneath that formed the foundation of who he was. The parts that some people might look away from because they were a little less easy to swallow.”

Part of what makes Chloe and Red’s relationship so strong is that they can be vulnerable with one another, even though it takes some time to develop that trust. Chloe illustrates that her love for Red goes deeper than their obvious physical chemistry because she loves every part of Red, not just the parts that are easy to love or uncomplicated. Chloe herself has her own struggles that at times she feels make her difficult to love. In contrast, Red gives Chloe the space to be who she is, even on days she may not feel the best, because of his love for her.

“You were hurt, and you reacted. You were in an unhealthy situation in more ways than one, and you panicked and cleansed everything with fire. Don’t dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don’t reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.”

When Red explains the history of what happened to him in London, Chloe validates the feelings and emotions that he has been struggling with since. Red often struggles with feeling like his decision to leave London altogether was a wrong one or a colossal mistake and struggles to confirm his own feelings. Chloe reminds him here that he should not dismiss the complexity of his experience and gives him the space to do so.

“He knew about how much the list meant to her. Maybe he thought she was pathetic, and clingy, and all the other things Henry had called her before he’d left.”

Upon telling Red that she put him on her list and seeing his horrified reaction, Chloe assumes that Red finds her pathetic. There is a huge misunderstanding between the two that arises because of their own insecurities and past relationship trauma. For Chloe, her reaction is based on what happened with her ex-fiancé, Henry, who called her pathetic and clingy and treated her terribly during their breakup. Chloe mistakenly ascribes Henry’s language to Red, which causes her to reject Red before he rejects her.

“Once upon a time, Chloe had promised herself that she would never chase anyone who wanted to leave. She would never allow abandonment, desperation, love to make a fool of her. But her feet moved without permission, slowly at first, then faster, until she was stumbling over stray boxes and leaning against the walls for balance, righting herself with vicious determination.”

Despite Chloe’s determination to never let love “make a fool of her,” she finds herself chasing after Red to try and convince him that he misunderstood her reasons for putting him on her list. This illustrates the depths of Chloe’s feelings for Red, that she is willing to let go of her strongly held convictions and take a risk for love, to put herself in a vulnerable position that could ultimately harm her, because she loves him. This quote illustrates that while Chloe and Red do not resolve their issues by the end of this scene, Chloe is able to take risks for love when it comes to Red, and this is what will ultimately bring them back together by the end of the text.

“Just like that, he truly understood the word devastation. He was the earth after a monumental asteroid, knocked off his axis, burned and choked and twisted into a wasteland.”

Red reacts to Chloe telling him she cannot be with him anymore after their argument. This quote illustrates the severity of Red’s pain, and the depths of his feelings for her by comparing his anguish to the earth impacted by a collision with an asteroid. Without Chloe, Red realizes that his life would become a barren and devoid wasteland.

“I can’t do this. Because we’re only human, and I’ll stumble, or you will, and it’ll hurt just like this, and I can’t. I can’t. I should’ve known I wasn’t ready for this. When you walked out…”

Chloe tells Red that despite her feelings for him, she cannot be with him because the potential of losing him again hurts too much. Chloe assumes that their argument dooms their relationship, and that human beings are fallible enough that one of them will mess up again at some point, causing irreparable damage.

“Life hurts [...] It’s unavoidable. But I know the difference between torture and growing pains.”

Red tries to convince Chloe to be with him despite their argument because of his experience in an abusive relationship. When Chloe tries to tell him that they cannot be together because they will just continue to hurt one another (even by accident), Red says that the pain from their argument is nothing like the “torture” he experienced in a truly abusive relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Red makes the argument that no relationship is without its faults, or “growing pains” and that one argument should not negate the good aspects of their relationship.

“Love is certainly never safe, but it’s absolutely worth it.”

Chloe speaks with Gigi after she and Red break up to try and gain clarity about her feelings. Though she still loves Red, Chloe feels convinced that love is simply too much of a risk, and that she feels unwilling to open herself up to potential hurt again. Gigi explains that risk is innate to love, and that while it may never be “safe,” it is not worth ignoring, giving up on, or never experiencing simply because it is risky.